Custom Cardigans and Half-Zips: Where the Placket Puts Your Logo
By The Velocity Wear Team
On both cardigans and half-zips, the front placket decides your logo placement before you do. A cardigan's button overlap shifts the true centre of the garment sideways, and a half-zip's zip occupies the upper chest exactly where a badge might otherwise sit. Left chest embroidery works on both, but it needs to be positioned from the placket edge rather than the garment centre. Velocity Wear embroiders both from a 20-piece minimum with proofs measured in millimetres.
Three Different Garments Called Half-Zip
The term covers a knitted half-zip sweater, a brushed fleece half-zip, and a sweatshirt-fabric half-zip, and they behave nothing alike. The knit cannot be printed and needs careful embroidery with backing. The fleece has a pile surface that swallows fine stitching and needs a topping to sit clean. The sweatshirt version is the only one of the three that takes print reasonably well.
So the first question is never where the logo goes. It is which fabric you are actually buying, because that determines whether you have any options at all beyond embroidery.
The Zip Occupies Your Best Real Estate
A half-zip runs from the collar down to roughly the mid chest, and a quarter-zip stops higher. Either way, the zip and its placket sit centrally, which removes the option of a centred chest design. Left chest embroidery still works, but the logo has to clear the placket edge by around 40mm so the hoop sits flat and the embroidery does not tilt towards the zip.
Below the zip stop, the front becomes a single continuous panel again. That lower area is technically printable on a sweatshirt-fabric half-zip, but a print sitting low on the belly rarely looks intentional. Most people who want a large graphic put it on the back and keep the front to a small mark.
Cardigans and the Button Overlap Problem
A cardigan's two front panels overlap when buttoned, which means the visual centre line of the garment is not the same as the centre of either panel. Position a left chest logo by measuring from the buttoned front edge, not from a seam, and confirm whether the sample was measured buttoned or flat. Getting this wrong is why cardigan logos so often look slightly too far towards the middle.
There is a second wrinkle. Men's and women's cardigans button on opposite sides, so the overlap sits differently and a single placement spec will not serve both. If you are ordering a mixed set, expect two placement specs from the same artwork.
Collar Height and Embroidery Clearance
Half-zips often have a tall funnel collar and a chin guard at the top of the zip. Both eat into the upper chest. If your placement measures down from the collar seam rather than the shoulder, a tall collar pushes everything lower and the logo can end up further down than intended. Measure from the high shoulder point instead, which stays consistent regardless of collar style.
Watch the hoop clearance too. On a tall collar the embroidery machine needs room to clamp the panel flat, and a logo positioned high near the collar seam can be physically awkward to hoop. If a supplier pushes back on a high placement, that is usually why.
- Establish which fabric the half-zip actually is before choosing a decoration method.
- Measure left chest placement from the placket edge, allowing around 40mm of clearance.
- Measure vertically from the high shoulder point, not the collar seam, since collar heights vary.
- Prepare two placement specs if you are ordering men's and women's cardigans together.
- Put large graphics on the back, because the zip removes any usable centred front area.
“"The placket always wins the argument. Design your placement around it or spend the run explaining why the logos look crooked."”
Who Actually Wears These
Cardigans dominate in care settings, schools, hospitality front of house and anywhere staff need a layer that comes off easily without disturbing a hairstyle or a headset. Half-zips are the corporate and outdoor choice, common in sales teams, golf, groundskeeping and site offices. That difference matters when you pick fabric weight, because a care worker wants something washable at temperature and a site manager wants something windproof.
Matching a Half-Zip to the Rest of the Uniform
Half-zips are almost always layered over a polo or shirt, so check the collar interaction. A tall funnel collar over a polo collar looks bulky and pushes the shirt collar out at an odd angle. A lower stand collar sits far better. It sounds like a small detail and it is the thing people notice in photographs.
Proofing a Placement You Cannot Eyeball
Ask for the proof to state two numbers: distance down from the high shoulder point, and distance across from the placket edge. A picture alone will not tell you whether a logo clears the zip properly. Use the free Design Studio to lay it out, and the instant price calculator to compare methods and quantities, with bulk discounts reaching up to around 40%. Embroidered runs typically take around 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval.